Kingfisher No Longer Associated With East Bengal Football Team

Kolkata: The long 20 years partnership between East Bengal and the United Breweries Group is coming to end.

The Bengaluru-based company informed East Bengal club officials vide a letter on Monday that it would no longer be the part of the Kingfisher East Bengal Football Team Private Limited, ending its two-decade-long association with the club. The UB Group, however, is willing to continue its association with the club as a co-sponsor.

The UB Group is already associated with two Indian Super League sides – Bengaluru FC and FC Goa – as one of their co-sponsors.

“We are in the process of forming a new company. Hopefully, legal and other formalities will be completed before the start of the I-League,” East Bengal general-secretary Kalyan Majumdar said at the club tent on Monday. “In the meantime, the club will play under its original name – ‘East Bengal’ – without any title sponsor in the local league and other tournaments,” he added.

The UB Group entered into a partnership with both East Bengal and Mohun Bagan in 1998 and backed the two clubs as their title sponsors – albeit under different brands.

The group severed its ties with Mohun Bagan in 2016 and their association with East Bengal became untenable when they proposed a heavy cut in the sponsorship amount – from Rs 3.5 crore to Rs 1.5 crore – for the upcoming season during a meeting last month.